


Compels Us Past Devils

by Mosca



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Chromatic Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-12
Updated: 2010-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-13 15:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane gets a confession out of Cho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compels Us Past Devils

**Author's Note:**

  * For [devera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/gifts).



> The title is from [Garbage Art](http://community.livejournal.com/breathe_poetry/448476.html) by Noelle Kocot. Many thanks to my fabulous beta, Thistle90.

Jane had a new toy, and nobody had taken it away from him yet. It was a pocket-size ring-bound notebook, and all morning, he'd been jotting furiously in it with a blunt pencil. Leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, jotting, stopping, smiling, jotting some more, all the while with one eye on Cho. Except when Jane smiled, and Cho got both eyes and the full force of his grin. Cho knew that this meant Jane wanted attention, and specifically that Jane wanted Cho to ask what he was writing. Sometimes, when Jane was this obnoxious, Cho played along. There were times when Cho liked being the assistant who'd figured out the key to Jane's trick. But there were also days like these – leaky faucet in his bathroom, check engine light in his car, envelope of requisition forms that kept getting sent back to him even though they belonged to Chen in the fraud department – when Cho needed to be left alone as much as Jane needed attention. And in addition to this bevy of minor irritations, Cho had been left in the office to babysit after Jane had outraged a grieving widow. It was late evening, long after the rest of the homicide staff had gone home, but someone needed to wait around for forensics to get back with urgent evidence. As punishment for Jane and proof to Cho that it had just been this kind of day, Lisbon had elected the two of them.

With a sigh of extraordinary disappointment, Jane said, "Aren't you going to ask me what I'm writing?"

"No."

"You're not curious?" Jane used his feet to push off, wheeling his desk chair closer to Cho.

"Not really."

Jane looked Cho over and broke into another feline grin. "You really weren't going to ask, were you?"

"Not today," Cho said, as Jane twirled his blunt pencil into writing position and added a new note.

"I'm making a list of the things that annoy me about you," Jane said.

"I'm sure you are."

"Your shirts." Jane inched closer, holding out the notebook so Cho could look on if he wanted, which he didn't. "Those short-sleeved dress shirts you wear, even when it's nippy out. Like you're trying to prove to everyone how square you are, except they're just _slightly_ too tight. So the message you're really sending is that you want everyone to notice your biceps. And also that you're square."

Cho tugged at his own sleeve. He liked his shirts and had not thought much about the particular message they sent. Were they too tight? He thought they fit comfortably.

"Comments?" Jane said. "Rebuttals?"

Cho shrugged. Did Jane really want him to defend his shirts?

"Responds nonverbally to attempts at friendly conversation," Jane read from his notebook. "That was already there, but I'd like to note it again."

"I don't have much to add," Cho said.

"Exactly my point." Jane sat silently for a few moments, leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed, bouncing his top leg so the chair shook and creaked. "Except that you always do. Did you know that when people are thinking something sarcastic that they know better than to say out loud, they get a certain look on their face? You're usually too busy trying not to laugh to suppress the smirk. It's a dead giveaway."

"Does that annoy you, too?" Cho said.

"Not at all. It's a rare flash of humanity." Jane flipped through his notebook dramatically, although his list could not possibly have been that long. "But you know what does, that might get a reaction out of you?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

Jane stabbed the notebook with his finger. "You date women you don't like." Before Cho could ask what that was supposed to mean, Jane continued. "You're always _seeing_ one woman or another, but you never talk about what you enjoy about them, what makes them special."

"I haven't really connected with anyone in a while." It was Cho's standard excuse, tinged enough with private emotion to sound honest but vague enough to end the conversation. With anyone but Jane.

"That's one possibility," Jane said. "Or it's possible that you date women you know you won't get close to, in order to protect yourself from intimacy. Or -" he punctuated this with a cavalier gesture of _just a suggestion_ \- "you don't like women."

"I like women." Cho's voice shook. Most people didn't hear the lies hidden in his tone, but Jane would.

"Sure you do. As friends, as colleagues." Jane grinned like a wolf cornering a rabbit.

When Cho had been in the Air Force, stationed at Diego Garcia, he'd had an affair with his commanding officer. DG was a sandbar in the middle of the Indian Ocean, pretty much one big military base, and Cho had been working a high-security desk job, ten hours a day in a windowless, heavily air-conditioned room, scanning military secrets from paper into the computer. In that vault, they'd made love daily, he and his CO, fifteen years older, married with kids, slow Georgia accent, smooth shaved head and pecs like steel. Cho's body got nostalgic, remembering him. They'd gotten caught eventually, and Cho had been informed, quietly, that nothing bad would happen if he chose not to renew his contract at the end of his four year tour. He didn't ask what the repercussions would be for attempting to stay, just went back to Oakland to figure out what he could do with himself now that a military career was out of the question. He'd taught himself to resist temptation, for the most part. A few times a year, he'd go to a jazz bar in Sacramento populated with out-of-town businessmen and guys who forgot to take off their wedding rings. It was the kind of bar where nobody asked your name.

Cho told Jane none of this. Jane studied Cho's silence, still wolfish. Then, before Cho could think to trap Jane in a shoulder lock and tell him to back the hell off, Jane kissed him.

Resisting temptation was difficult enough with a crazy, blond charlatan-genius with a tight butt in the office every day, and more difficult when that person seemed to consider Cho a friend. It was impossible when Jane was kissing him.

Cho gathered his thoughts about him. "Don't patronize me." He broke off the kiss.

"You're one of the few people I _don't_ patronize," Jane said. "It doesn't do much good."

"But you're not -"

"Interested in you? I'm fascinated. I have a weakness for people who annoy me. It has nothing to do with gender." Jane's eyes panged with sadness, and Cho wondered what his wife had been like. She must have driven Jane crazy.

Cho shook his head. "You saw what happened with Rigsby and Van Pelt. I'm not going down that road."

"And I have a psychotic serial killer chasing after me, destroying everyone I love," Jane said. "I'm not going down that road, either." He sat back down in his chair, elbows on his thighs, leaning his chin forward into his hands. "But I thought you should know I'd figured it out – took me one hell of a long time, too – and it's not as bad as you think. This isn't the Air Force, or juvie, or a minor league baseball team. Nobody'd mind if you dated someone you... liked."

Cho sat on his desk, pursing his lips. Jane was probably right. But it was better to let Jane keep talking than to overtly feed his ego.

"Such as that guy from fraud who keeps 'accidentally' getting his paperwork sent down here and claiming that the inter-office mail system can't tell the two of you apart, so he can spend five minutes a week smiling at you while you find his envelope. What's his name again?"

"Chen." Cho realized as he said it that Jane's whole game had been getting him to admit he knew who Jane was talking about.

"Fraud's a whole different department. You'd be fine."

"True enough." It seemed easy, all of a sudden. Like all the risk had been taken out. Jane had probably worked out Cho's secret a while ago and spent most of the time in between seeking out a boyfriend for him. Coming from Jane, it was a kind gesture.

Jane hopped back out of his chair and looked for a moment to be leaping into Cho's lap, but instead he stood close, at the edge of Cho's desk, their knees touching. "Let's have one more. Just for the sake of it." He kissed Cho again, and this time, more certain of its meaning, Cho let himself loose in it. This wasn't a passionate kiss, but it was true. Cho was careful not to make it more than the circling of tongues and the pressure of lips, as much as his body begged for it, though he allowed himself one quick grab of Jane's butt, to see what it felt like. It had been a long time since he'd been kissed by someone he loved, and it might be a long time before that happened again.

Cho heard footsteps and jumped backward suddenly, almost pitching himself backward over the desk. He straightened his tie as Chen came in, explaining that he was on his way home but just wanted to see if inter-office mail had sent Cho his requisition forms again. Cho looked him in the eye for what might have been the first time. Chen was tall, with a crooked smile, wearing a suit slightly too big for him. Cho made their hands brush as he gave Chen the envelope, and he tried to force a smile only to find that it came naturally. He didn't drum up courage for more than that, but surely Chen would be back in a week with another set of "misplaced" forms.

Jane beamed at Cho. Cho ignored him.


End file.
